Best movies like Mirror for a Hero
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Two not quite similar men, our contemporaries, Sergey Pshenichny and Andrew Nemchinov, are walking in the street in their native mining town and found themselves in 1949. It's a common knowledge that real miracles happen without technical devices: time comes miracle happens. They spend in 1949 only one day the next morning they found that it is the same day that was yesterday. All several months, they spent in the past, they spent in one and the same day: the 8th of May, Sunday, the day of heightened coal production. In the morning to the coal mine, in an hour an accident in a coalface, at 10 o'clock wire from the Ministry, after work reunion concerning the Stalins anniversary; robbing of pay desk, death of policeman Ryabenko, in the evening - volunteer Sunday work… and in the morning the same, and so for ever and ever Philosophic fiction, accompanied by music of group Nautilus Pompillius. After a novel of S.Rybasa of the same name.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 716
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 139 min
Plot tags: social, surreal, philosophical
Best tv shows and movies like Mirror for a Hero (1987):
Similar in 89%
Escape of Mr. McKinley (1975)
Plot Summary:
A man decides to escape into the future by the way of hibernation. When he wakes up, feeling lucky that the experiment worked out well, the staff of the hibernation company politely walks him to the outside were he finds a post atomic war desert… He wakes up! Thank God it was just a dream! Or was it?.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 215
Genere: Fantasy, Sci-Fi
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 162 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 78%
Parade of the Planets (1984)
Plot Summary:
In a surreal puzzler, this story of a fantasy lived by a disparate group of four men captures the visual imagination with its images and leaves a large question mark in the meantime. The men first get together when called up for military maneuvers in the equivalent of a civilian reserve corps. Since their training is only periodical, two years go by before they are called up again. During this season's maneuvers, they end up being "killed," and so get some time off before they have to go home, and that is when the strange occurrences start. First the men visit a town of beautiful women and go swimming in the buff, then they land on a deserted island, and later, they find themselves with a group of elderly people, one of whom may - or may not - have a connection to one of the men.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 508
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: neorealism, allegory
Similar in 75%
The History of Time Travel (2014)
Plot Summary:
A fictional documentary about the creation of the world's first time machine, the men who created it, and the unintended ramifications it has on world events.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: USA
Duration: 72 min
Plot tags: slasher, mockumentary, psychotronic
Similar in 78%
The Ugly Little Boy (1977)
Plot Summary:
Edyth Fellows is a nurse recruited for an research project with a time travel device that can snatch any being from any time and bring it to the present. The first such test brings an Neanderthal child to the project and Fellows is responsible for his care for the interim. As she manages this task, Fellows is increasingly revolted at how the scientists dismiss him as little more than an animal, especially when his real intelligence shows. This growing moral dilemma comes to a head when Fellows realizes what they plan to do with him and she cannot stand by and let it happen.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 98
Genere: Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: Canada
Duration: 26 min
Plot tags: futuristic
Similar in 90%
For All Time (2000)
Plot Summary:
A man facing middle-age and a failing marriage finds a time slip that can take him back to the end of the nineteenth century.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: USA
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, captivating, melancholic
Similar in 86%
Turn Back the Clock (1989)
Plot Summary:
After a woman fervently wishes for another chance after a terrible tragedy, she is mysteriously granted one year of her life to be lived over.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 98
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 81%
Hard to Be a God (1989)
Plot Summary:
Another planet in the period of medieval times. An employee of the institute of experimental history from Earth, who is send under the name of noble don Rumata of Estor as a spy with a mission to contact the local resident of the institute, arrives in the city of Arkanar. But the resident perishes under an unlucky attempt to make a palace coup, and Rumata have to take his place as the resident. Soon he meets all the horrors of the medieval society - a peasant war, palace coups, mass executions. To continue to be an indifferent watcher of all these horrors turns out to be simply impossible.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: West Germany, France, Soviet Union, Switzerland
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: philosophical, surreal, disturbing, grotesque, weird, eighties
Similar in 77%
Paradox (2016)
Plot Summary:
A group of scientists are experimenting with time travel, and they manage to send one of their group ahead in time one hour. But when he comes back, he tells them that they’ll all be dead within the next hour unless they shut the machine down.
IMDB Rating: 4.6
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: scary, suspense, suspenseful, disturbing, mind bending, grindhouse, surprise ending
Similar in 75%
Lilac Ball (1988)
Plot Summary:
Alisa Seleznyova and her father professor Seleznyov are traveling in space. They meet their old friend archaeologist Gromozeka, who's just discovered a planet all inhabitants of which died. It became known that they discovered a virus of hostility, got infected and killed each other. Gromozeka also discovered that they had left the virus on Earth 26000 years ago, and the virus is about to become loose. The only chance to save the Earth is to travel 26000 years back in time - to the epoch when witches, dragons and magicians lived along with usual people.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 394
Genere: Adventure, Family, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 77 min
Plot tags: futuristic
Similar in 81%
City Zero (1988)
Plot Summary:
An engineer in charge of the production line of a factory in Moscow is sent to a small town to try to specify the distributor the new dimensions of a mechanic part they need. But in this town everybody seems to be crazy (a secretary who works naked, a group of people take the engineer as a rock & roll player, etc) and, in addition, this man is witness of a suicide, so he is trapped inside the town.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: surreal, heartfelt, atmospheric, offbeat, humorous, realistic, semi serious, black comedy, dark comedy, cult film
Similar in 87%
41 (2012)
Plot Summary:
A young man discovers a hole in the floor of a local motel that leads to yesterday.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: Australia
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: twisted
Similar in 89%
Needle in a Timestack (2021)
Plot Summary:
A devoted husband will stop at nothing to save his marriage when it's destroyed by a time-traveling rival.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Romance, Sci-Fi
Country: USA
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: tense, enigmatic, captivating, disturbing, futuristic
Similar in 81%
I'll Follow You Down (2013)
Plot Summary:
After the disappearance of a young scientist on a business trip, his son and wife struggle to cope, only to make a bizarre discovery years later - one that may bring him home.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, serious, suspenseful, funny, philosophical, suspense, mind bending, psychotronic, independent film
Similar in 90%
Repeaters (2010)
Plot Summary:
A gritty mind-bending thriller about three twenty-somethings who find themselves in an impossible time labyrinth, where each day they awaken to the same terrifying day as the preceding one.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: Canada
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: psychological, mind bending, surreal, tense, clever, contemplative, retro, serious, weird
Similar in 86%
Aporia (2023)
Plot Summary:
Since losing her husband, Sophie has struggled to manage grief, a full-time job, and parenting her devastated daughter, but when a former physicist reveals a secret time-bending machine, Sophie will be faced with an impossible choice.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 717
Genere: Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: USA
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
The Two Worlds of Jennie Logan (1979)
Plot Summary:
Hoping to repair their marriage, Jennie Logan and her husband move into a beautiful Victorian manor. When Jennie tries on an antique dress she finds in the attic, she is transported back one hundred years, where she meets the house's previous owner, David. As her feelings for David grow, it becomes clear that Jennie is not only torn between two men and two times, but she also faces danger in both worlds.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 935
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Romance, Sci-Fi
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: spiritual, esoteric, serious, crying, urban fantasy
Similar in 81%
Days of Eclipse (1988)
Plot Summary:
This bleak late soviet-era drama follows the career of Malyanov, a young medical school graduate who has been sent to work in Turkmenia. Here he runs into a hodge-podge of people of differing ethnicities, all of them victims of the government's earlier mania for relocating and eliminating whole ethnic groups and classes of people. These desperately unhappy people are unable to find any pleasure in this diverse companionship, but instead are antagonistic to it, and often resort to desperate measures in their doomed attempts to ease their pain.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 139 min
Plot tags: spiritual, poetic, avant garde
Similar in 89%
From Time to Time (2009)
Plot Summary:
A haunting ghost story spanning two worlds, two centuries apart. When 13 year old Tolly finds he can mysteriously travel between the two, he begins an adventure that unlocks family secrets laid buried for generations.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Adventure, Drama, Fantasy
Country: UK
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: serious, exciting, touching, captivating, period piece, period drama, fable
Similar in 81%
Dead Man's Letters (1986)
Plot Summary:
In a world after the nuclear apocalypse a scholar helps a small group of children and adults survive, staying with them in the basement of the former museum of history. In his mind he writes letters to his son — though it is obvious that they will never be read.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: apocalyptic, psychedelic, depressing, spiritual, mind blowing, poetic, twisted, eighties
Similar in 79%
Generation P (2011)
Plot Summary:
A chronicle of Russia's transition from communism to capitalism.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: Russia, USA
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: surreal, mind bending, offbeat, thought provoking, cult classic, clever, humorous, cynical, semi serious, biting
Similar in 80%
Synchronicity (2015)
Plot Summary:
In this mind-bending 'Sci-Fi Noir' a daring physicist folds time to travel into the past, trying to stop a mysterious woman from stealing his invention. But once there, he uncovers a surprising truth about the machine, the woman, and his own fractured reality.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Romance, Sci-Fi
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: suspense, futuristic, tricky, atmospheric, stylized, psychological, confusing, mindfuck, mind bending, inspirational
Similar in 78%
Kin-dza-dza! (1986)
Plot Summary:
The story takes place on the desert planet "Pluke" in the "Kin-dza-dza" galaxy, where two Soviet humans previously unknown to each other ("Uncle Vova", a gruff construction foreman from Moscow, and "The Fiddler", a student from Georgia) are stranded due to an accidental encounter with an alien teleportation device. The movie describes their long quest to find a way back home.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 135 min
Plot tags: surreal, philosophical, humorous, offbeat, enigmatic, cult classic, psychedelic, apocalyptic, parody, mind bending
Similar in 77%
James vs. His Future Self (2019)
Plot Summary:
When an uptight time-travelling obsessed young scientist is visited by his nihilistic future self, he's told that he needs to give up his dream of becoming the world's first time traveler, or else. But when he won't go along with the plan, it becomes a wicked battle of man versus himself - literally.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: Canada
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: psychological, humorous, captivating, entertaining
Similar in 89%
Time Changer (2002)
Plot Summary:
The year is 1890 and Bible professor Russell Carlisle has written a new manuscript entitled "The Changing Times". His colleague, Dr. Norris Anderson, believes that what Carlisle has written could greatly affect the future of coming generations and, using his secret time machine, Anderson sends Carlisle over 100 years into the future, offering him a glimpse of where his beliefs will lead.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: christian film, serious, captivating, exciting, suspenseful, psychological, contemplative, biting, suspense
Similar in 86%
Meet Cute (2022)
Plot Summary:
A wildly inventive deconstruction of the romantic comedy built around the question: What would you do if you could travel to your loved ones’ past, heal their traumas, fix their problems, and change them into the perfect partner?.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Romance, Sci-Fi
Country: USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: cute
Similar in 77%
Stalker (1979)
Plot Summary:
Near a gray and unnamed city is the Zone, a place guarded by barbed wire and soldiers, and where the normal laws of physics are victim to frequent anomalies. A Stalker guides two men into the Zone, specifically to an area in which deep seeded desires are granted.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 142000
Genere: Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 162 min
Plot tags: philosophical, atmospheric, bleak, art house, cerebral, thought provoking, meditative, psychological, gloomy, mind bending
Similar in 87%
The Time Traveler's Wife (2009)
Plot Summary:
Due to a genetic disorder, handsome librarian Henry DeTamble involuntarily zips through time, appearing at various moments in the life of his true love, the beautiful artist Clare Abshire.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 156000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Romance, Sci-Fi
Country: USA
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: romantic, touching, sentimental, emotional, sad, sincere, tear jerker, sweet, heartbreaking, romantic comedy
Similar in 86%
Mr. Nobody (2009)
Plot Summary:
Nemo Nobody leads an ordinary existence with his wife and 3 children; one day, he wakes up as a mortal centenarian in the year 2092.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 243000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Romance, Sci-Fi
Country: Belgium, Germany, Canada, France, UK, Luxembourg, USA
Duration: 141 min
Plot tags: psychological, surreal, philosophical, mind bending, thought provoking, confusing, cerebral, mind blowing, reflective, offbeat
Similar in 87%
About Time (2013)
Plot Summary:
The night after another unsatisfactory New Year party, Tim's father tells his son that the men in his family have always had the ability to travel through time. Tim can't change history, but he can change what happens and has happened in his own life – so he decides to make his world a better place... by getting a girlfriend. Sadly, that turns out not to be as easy as he thinks.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 377000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Romance, Sci-Fi
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags: touching, feel good, sincere, sentimental, reflective, melancholic, emotional, romantic, cute, humorous
Similar in 87%
The Butterfly Effect (2004)
Plot Summary:
A young man struggles to access sublimated childhood memories. He finds a technique that allows him to travel back into the past, to occupy his childhood body and change history. However, he soon finds that every change he makes has unexpected consequences.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 514000
Genere: Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: psychological, mind bending, philosophical, suspense, non-linear, dramatic, reflective, intellectual, intense, surprise ending